This blog will post detailed news items about GLBT issues. Some of the issues include the "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and gay marriage. Please note that my main website is DOASKDOTELL.COM (link on my Profile).

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About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

But thousands protested the law in Indianapolis Saturday, as
USA Today reportshere.

There is a Boycott Indiana movement, recalling the battle
over the Boy Scouts of America. There is
also an “Open for Service” campaign.

ThinkProgress has an article of major interests saying that
the law is now bad for business, including the NCAA, here. Angie’s List may cancel planned renovation
and expansion in Indianapolis. (See my main blog March 26), as it says some employees may fear moving to Indiana. The NCAA and Final Four have objected. It seems that one aspect that is objectionable is the "Hobby" provision that would allow it to be applied to closely held corporations as well as companies.

I worked for RCA for about three months in the summer of
1970 at 30th St and Washington in Indianapolis.

In another matter, I attended a Reel Affirmations fundraiser
last night. Details are today on my
Movie’s Blog.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Vox media has a couple of important US maps: one, showing
which states have anti-gay discrimination protections, which include gender
identity, and which have no protections.
It also provides a map of states with “no pro homo laws” banning
teachers from mentioning homosexuality (at least in a positive light) in public
schools. Important parts of history (such as the legal and court battles over gays in the military and now gay marriage, as well as the parallels between LGBT and traditional race-based civil rights movement) are overlooked, even in some approved texts.

Curiously, Utah provides discrimination protection
(recently) but also still has the “no pro” law on the books! Virginia has neither.

But even some states forced to allow gay marriage have an
unfavorable legal environment in these areas.

These kinds of laws are, in part, motivated by the old “waverer”
theory, that is, a belief that a “marginal” person will decide not to marry and
have children if he or she finds out that an “alternate lifestyle” is socially
and morally acceptable. And in Russia,
Putin makes a lot of the low birth rate.

It may seem counter-intuitive. Isn’t reproduction an instinctive drive in
perhaps most people? Yet, this idea wasn’t
that controversial when I was growing up.
In the 1950s, I can recall seeing a few women’s magazine articles (why
did I look at them?) expressing the “old maid” fear (dramatized in a famous
scene in “Gone with the Wind”), that some young women would never find husbands
and become poor. Even in my little stint
of heterosexual dating in 1971, I picked up on this. There was a fear that someone like me could
mean some woman would never marry.

There was still a vestige of authoritarianism in social
values as I grew up. There was a belief
that stability and security depended on some sense of discipline in the
population, with more attention to non-conformity (as being played out now in
the “Divergent” movies). Typically, authoritarianism
creates its own political corruption (look at modern Russia under Putin). But sometimes it remains relatively clean
(like Singapore, recently discussed with Yew's death).

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Tuesday, The American Family Association took out a full
page ad in the Washington Post, claiming that marriage comes from God, not man.

The obvious problem is, of course, separation of church and
state. I have always thought it rather illogical that a God designs the lives of beings with Free Will. God is not writing a novel. We're not characters in a screenplay (at least not mine).

But there is something else at work here. Marital partners may feel that adherence to
religious precepts, and belief that others recognize them, makes the marital
relationship more passionate. If they
believe secular ideas define marriage, they may feel less incentivized to stay
in it.

Monday, March 23, 2015

“Retired” Democratic congressman Barney Frank, in an article
by Nik DeCostaKlipa in Boston, is reported to have suggested that a number of other
members of Congress are “closeted” gays, and he says he has no problem with
that as long as they aren’t hypocrites.
The story is here. Barney
Frank has a new book named after, well, his last name.

He’s particularly ticked at GOP members of Congress in the
closet, since they often have voted anti-gay, and left Log Cabin Republicans
with the dubious double role (of playing libertarian). Particularly taunting is the idea that Rep.
Aaron Schock (R-IL) was rumored to be gay, despite the public womanizing. The
beef photos with a hairless chest doesn’t do anything to defuse the
rumors. Remember David Skinner’s June
1999 article in “Weekly Standard”.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

When I see a news storylike the Vox account (by German
Lopez) of the proposed “Sodomite Suppression Act” in California, for which
Orange County attorney Matt McLaughlin filed the required $200 fee to create a
ballot initiative, I wonder if some people propose things like this just for
the attention, to force news organizations, in the interest of objectivity, to
report on their proposals. That even
creates a problem for individual bloggers; their followers don’t need to see
Facebook posts or tweets reporting trash like this.

Nevertheless, as Vox explains, it probably will get into the
referendum process, before the State supreme court removes it as so obviously
unconstitutional. The law wording even
contains a trap to stop a challenge to its constitutionality.

The law, on its face, reads like a parody of Russia’s “anti-gay
propaganda law”, deliberately legalizing violence in some cases, and actually
making same-sex relations a capital crime (which Russia’s law actually does
not).

We can wonder again why someone regards gay “sodomy” a
bigger threat than real competition for a heterosexual spouse.

There is value in reporting the story in recalling that in
the spring of 1983, there was a bill before the Texas legislature, HR2138,
reinforcing the sodomy law at the time (2106) and banning gays from most
occupations. This was a right wing
response to the early days of the AIDS panic, before HTLV-3 was even
identified.

There was a somewhat vitriolic anti-gay referendum in Oregon in 1992.

But this latest proposal from Orange County sounds like
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. I
do remember other anti-gay politicians from that area, like Danmeyer.

NBC News reports that Bob Jones III apologized for a similar statement made 35 years ago, here,

Saturday, March 21, 2015

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints now says it
will not take any action against individual members who express political
support for gay marriage or any other equal rights for gays in social or any
other public media, as long as it is not presented as official church
doctrine. The story in the Salt Lake
Tribune is here. It wasn’t clear if this
applied to church employees.

There have been numerous problems with employees of other
churches, especially Catholic, being fired for supporting gay marriage on their
own social media accounts. The problem
was much less noticeable with earlier issues, like gays in the military.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The largest Presbyterian body in the United States, PCUSA,
has approved a wording change in its constitution to allow LGBT weddings in the
church. The wording changes from
marriage as a contract “between a man and a woman” to a contract “between two
people traditionally a man and a woman”.
I might have inserted the word “adult”.
The New York Times story by Laurie Goodstein is here.

The Presbyterian denomination in the US has lost 37% of its
membership since 1992.

I have attended both Clarendon Presbyterian Church (link) and more recently Trinity Presbyterian Church in Arlington VA.

Social life in mainstream churches, however, tends to
revolve around families with children (and extended by elders), and around
mutual support and needs that often arise in families, and not so much with
individual personal choices in the usual sense.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Jack Jenkins has a major piece in ThinkProgress today on how
the rise of LGBT rights, especially marriage equality, is an “existential
threat” to socially conservative religious groups, link here. My first reaction was to think all the way
back to Robert Blair’s Evangelicals Concerned when I lived in Dallas in the
1980s.

The article mentions World Vision, an “evangelical charity”,
which pulled out on a promise to hire “gay married” employees after objections
from “conservative” donors, as indicated in this story from New Internationalist
here . World Vision supports efforts lie the “30Hour Famine” World Vision, however, did issue
statements arguing that Uganda’s anti-gay law could hinder charitable efforts,
especially with HIV-infected persons, as indicated in this Christian Post
story.

It strikes me that, over all the years, “gay equality” or
even gay privacy as it used to be construed, was a subset of a larger battle
over the importance of a group (or family) needing to expect emotional loyalty
form its members to larger goals, especially population. Just as there used to be an anti-Vietnam war
saying “My country right or wrong”, there is also “my family right or wrong”, and
“my beliefs right or wrong.” Since
individuals will inherit the “karma” of their group, they have to become very
concerned over knowing that their faith is “right” when compared to someone
else’s. No wonder there can be war over
religion. “Inherit the wind”,
indeed. On the other hand,
hyperindividualism (which works well with a lot of the modern gay community)
can leave a lot of less “independent” people behind. Darwinianism, or
Spencerianism, doesn’t quite computer morally either.

On the “30 Hour Famine”, I’m reminded of little dilemma over
donating latte money, and the like, or even putting on public sympathy with
fundraisers staffed by barbers. I think “you
do, for others, what you think you should do” with your own talents, and play down the
spectacle of “sacrifice” or making someone “all right”. Of course, that doesn't completely support "belonging" or social capital.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Saturday night, I finally got out for a “normal” evening of
clubbing. Suddenly, after weeks of
unusual late winter cold, it was mild, in the 60s, warm enough for a little
thunder. The Town Danceboutique,
apparently for the first time ever, opened its new patio during nighttime disco
hours. The upstairs DJ program was called "Dirty Pop".

There is a new stairway from the dance floor to the patio, which
definitely sounds like a good idea.

All around, in the neighborhood, apartments and condos are
going up, like the Schay across U St. I hope they don’t encroach. You wonder how an outdoor parking lot can
survive in the area. The businesses (including the 930 as well as Town) need
to build a regular 24-hour commercial garage and charge a reasonable
smart-phone flat rate on weekend nights.
(In West Hollywood, the Library became the night paid lot, with no
street parking, and a flat $10 a night charge when I was there, and, yes, I
went to the Abbey.)

I’ve been reading Jack Andraka’s book “Breaththrough”, and
will review it soon on my Books blog.

But Chapter 4 goes into detail about the
rejection and bullying he faced in middle school (8th grade?) after
he “came out”. I thought that in an
upper middle class Baltimore suburb, in a blue state, that school systems had a
better handle on this problem by year 2000 or so than they did. Still, at the time, the repeal of “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” was ten years away, and the first marriage victory for a state
would not happen for four years.

We’re left to wonder where these attitudes hailed from. What did others want from “divergents” like
me? It seems that, when I was growing
up, marital sexuality was seen as a communitarian thing – the permanence of the passion depended
on the social support for it, and the exclusion of everything else. We were a big leak in the picture. But a lot of the bullying seems to come from
more basic things: a vulgar extension of
the idea of “survival of the fittest” (including reproductively speaking, Putin
style), and a cultist need to see everyone held to some kind of pre-ordained
(or scriptural) idea of virtue, so that all the hardships (and unfairness) of
real life took on some meaning.

Still, saying or implying that you probably wouldn’t have
children was seen as a bigger threat to the community than sexual aggression or
infidelity in the usual sense.

Friday, March 13, 2015

The Washington Blade is reporting on an ocular syphilis outbreak
among MSM, and it seems to be more likely or more severe among men who are
HIV+. Many of the reports come from the
LA area. The link is here.

This variation of syphilis can lead to partial or total
blindness, in one or both eyes.

Yet the old bacterial diseases – syphilis and gonorrhea, a
stable of advice in gay men’s health in earlier generations, became totally
overshadowed by AIDS and HIV in the 1980s.
Another major concern was Hepatitis B.
I actually got the vaccination for it in the fall of 1982 in
Dallas.

College students, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, need to consider getting both meningitis vaccines before moving into dorms. Again, HIV+ status probably makes the complications (amputations) more likely, but they can affect everyone. The Type B vaccine is new, but Type B is the more dangerous type, probably.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

The Florida legislature has introduced a bill, HR 7013, that
would remove the ban on adoption of children by gay and lesbian parents, after
an old law was struck down in 2010 (by a state appeals court).
Equality Florida has the story here.

Previously, some gay couples had given foster care
(including one male couple that took in a few HIV-infected children) but had
been forbidden by law to adopt. Some
other states, like Arkansas and New Hampshire, had bans in the past.

Rosie O’Donnell had moved out of state to raise he children.

Just as with gay marriage, or even more so, the legalization
of adoption by gay couples or singles raises a new question: should it be “expected”? The NBC4 “Wednesday’s Child” seems to plead
for adoptive parents (Sunday’s story).

The “moral debate” used to equate by proxy homosexuality to singleness and childlessness,
and disposable income, v. “responsibility for others”. That seems like an early 90s idea now. The debate has gotten much more nuanced.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Chris Johnson reports, in the Washington Blade, some complicated cases where Social Security
Administration continued to make payments to legally married persons in
same-sex marriages and then tried to recoup the benefits. These cases appear to involve SSI
(Supplemental Security Income), not normal retirement. I recapped those this morning on my
Retirement blog.

In fact, normal retirement, SSI, and SSDI all can present
different issues for same-sex couples and these issues do not appear to be
legally resolved yet. One issue concerns
“state of celebration” and “state o residence”. Litigation was filed by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and then Justice for Aging.

It’s also important to remember that many
(employer-provided) retirement or purchased annuities pay singles higher
payments if there are no spousal survival benefits.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Petula Dvorak reports that a new shelter specifically for
transgendered youth will open in Washington DC, apparently on Georgia Ave. in
NW, soon, in her Washington Post column here. She also discusses the fact that
single-gender shelters in DC may not discriminate on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity (that is, a person has the gender that the
person claims).

When I lived in Dallas in the 1980s, there was an attempt to
fund a “Safe Place” for gays thrown out of their homes, at the local MCC. Donors were offered “founder’s shares”.

Sunday, March 08, 2015

Today, NBC Washington (or NBC4) aired an episode of “Wednesday’s
Child” that showed a teenage boy being adopted by what appeared to be a male
couple. The broadcast did not say the
couple was gay or legally married.
Apparently it lives in Washington DC.
However, this is the first time I’ve personally seen an adoption by a
same-sex couple on the segment, which usually airs on Wednesday mornings before
the noon hour. The teen appeared to be well-adjusted
and doing well in school.

In Minneapolis, before I left in 2003, there was a campaign
to encourage singles to adopt, even with bu stop ads.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

First, we’ve covered Alabama’s self-strangulation on gay
marriage, and it seems to go on today.

There is a significant story today by Shane Larson and Lori
Pelletier, “Obama must be consistent on LGBT rights”, in negotiating the
TPP. Now the Trans Pacific Partnership
talks have come under heavy criticism from libertarian interests because of
aggressive copyright enforcement policies, hindering speech. This article is more narrowly targeted toward
countries with anti-gay policies, specifically Gambia in this case, after the USTR
terminated Gambia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Today Vox (storyby
Amanda Taub) reported that the UK had denied political asylum to Aderonke
Apata, a lesbian from Nigeria, because she has children!

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Oregon is now considering a bill to ban “conversion therapy”
for those under 18, according to a story by Casey Parks in the Oregonian, linkhere. The
bill is HB 2307, the “Youth Mental Health Protection Act”, title and link here. A lot of the complaints about “conversion
therapy” for youth concerned the Portland Fellowship, link here.

You know what the “religious freedom” arguments are. They will appeal to parents who want as much
progeny as possible. It’s easier for
people to perform in life the way they think they should if they know everyone
else has to.

Oregon was the site of an anti-gay referendum in the fall of 1992, which failed.

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